Part memoir, part manifesto, Radical is this fearless advocate's incisive, intensely personal call-to-arms. Rhee combines the story of her own extraordinary experience with dozens of compelling examples from schools she's worked in and studied-from students from unspeakable home lives who have thrived in the classroom to teachers whose radical methods have produced unprecedented leaps in achievement. Radical chronicles Rhee's awakening to the potential of every child, her rage at the special interests blocking badly-needed change, and her recognition that it will take a grassroots movement to create outstanding public schools.

Ken Robinson is one of the world's most influential voices in education, and his 2006 TED Talk on the subject is the most viewed in the organization's history. Now, the internationally recognized leader on creativity and human potential focuses on one of the most critical issues of our time: how to transform the nation's troubled educational system.

Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools

Diane Ravitch, America's foremost historian of education, says that public education in the United States is one of the pillars of our democratic society. In this eloquent book, she explains that our public schools have been wrongly criticized for low achievement, when federal data show that test scores and graduation rates are at their highest point in history - for black students, Hispanic students, white students, and Asian students - and dropout rates are at their lowest point in history.

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

In this best-selling expose of national policy gone wrong, America's foremost historian of education, Diane Ravitch, renounces her support for reform policies implemented over the past decade that she says are wrecking America's cherished tradition of public education.

The Flat World and Education:: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future

The Flat World and Education offers an eye-opening wake-up call concerning America's future and vividly illustrates what the United States needs to do to build a system of high-achieving and equitable schools that ensures every child the right to learn.

Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools

In a reporting tour de force, award-winning journalist Steven Brill takes an uncompromising look at the adults who are fighting over America’s failure to educate its children and points the way to reversing that failure. Brill not only takes us inside their roller-coaster battles, he also concludes with a surprising prescription for what it will take from both sides to put the American dream back in America’s schools.

Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America

When Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin signed up for Teach for America right after college and found themselves utter failures in the classroom, they vowed to remake themselves into superior educators. They did that and more. In their early twenties, by sheer force of talent and determination never to take no for an answer, they created a wildly successful fifth-grade experience that would grow into the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), which today includes 66 schools in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

The Bee Eater: Michelle Rhee Takes On the Nation's Worst School District

Hear the inside story of a maverick reformer with a take-no-prisoners management style.... Hailed by Oprah as a "warrior woman for our times", reviled by teachers unions as the enemy, Michelle Rhee, outgoing chancellor of Washington DC public schools, has become the controversial face of school reform. She has appeared on the cover of Time magazine, and is currently featured as a hero in the documentary Waiting for Superman. This is the story of her journey from good-girl daughter of Korean immigrants to tough-minded political game-changer.

The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined

A free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere: this is the goal of the Khan Academy, a passion project that grew from an ex-engineer and hedge funder's online tutoring sessions with his niece, who was struggling with algebra, into a worldwide phenomenon. Today millions of students, parents, and teachers use the Khan Academy's free videos and software, which have expanded to encompass nearly every conceivable subject; and Academy techniques are being employed with exciting results....

Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World

In this groundbreaking book, education expert Tony Wagner provides a powerful rationale for developing an innovation-driven economy. He explores what parents, teachers, and employers must do to develop the capacities of young people to become innovators.

Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School

The future of learning depends absolutely on the future of teaching. In their latest and most important collaboration, renowned educators Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan speak out against policies that result in a teaching force that is inexperienced, inexpensive, and exhausted in short order. These two international authorities - who know teaching and leadership inside out - set out a groundbreaking new agenda to transform the future of teaching and public education.

Lessons of Hope: How to Fix Our Schools

In 2002, New York City's newly elected mayor Michael Bloomberg made a historic announcement: His administration had won control of the city's school system in a first step toward reversing its precipitous decline. In a controversial move, he appointed Joel Klein, an accomplished lawyer from outside the education establishment, to lead this ambitious campaign. Lessons of Hope is Klein's inside account of his eight-year mission of improvement.

Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?

Finnish Lessons is a firsthand, comprehensive account of how Finland built a world-class education system over the past three decades. The author traces the evolution of education policies in Finland and highlights how they differ from those in the United States and other industrialized countries. Rather than relying on competition, school choice, and external testing of students, education reforms in Finland focus on professionalizing teachers’ work, developing instructional leadership in schools, and enhancing trust in teachers and schools.

A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn't in Providing an Excellent Education for All

As the "stunningly successful nonprofit organization, Teach For America" (New York Times) celebrates its 20th anniversary, its founder Wendy Kopp issues a passionate and inspiring summation of what she and TFA corps members have learned: that educational inequity—the achievement gap—is a solvable problem, and that the key to solving it—in a single classroom, a school, or system-wide—is leadership.

The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession

In other nations, public schools are one thread in a quilt that includes free universal child care, health care, and job training. Here, schools are the whole cloth. Today we look around the world at countries like Finland and South Korea, whose students consistently outscore Americans on standardized tests, and wonder what we are doing wrong. Dana Goldstein first asks the often-forgotten question: "How did we get here?"

Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom

Kids are naturally curious, but when it comes to school it seems like their minds are turned off. Why is it that they can remember the smallest details from their favorite television programs, yet miss the most obvious questions on their history test? Cognitive scientist Dan Willingham has focused his acclaimed research on the biological and cognitive basis of learning and has a deep understanding of the daily challenges faced by classroom teachers.

Teaching Minds: How Cognitive Science Can Save Our Schools

From grade school to graduate school, from the poorest public institutions to the most affluent private ones, our educational system is failing students. In his provocative new book, cognitive scientist and best-selling author Roger Schank argues that class size, lack of parental involvement, and other commonly cited factors have nothing to do with why students are not learning. The culprit is a system of subject-based instruction and the solution is cognitive-based learning. This groundbreaking book defines what it would mean to teach thinking.

Wasting Minds: Why Our Education System Is Failing and What We Can Do about It

Why has successful school reform been so difficult to achieve, despite decades of well-intentioned efforts, endless rhetoric, and billions of dollars of investment? Why do most U.S. schools continue to produce disappointing results? Why is there such a disconnect between the schools we need and the schools we have? In this thoughtful and insightful book, Ronald A. Wolk tackles these questions head-on, identifying key assumptions that have shaped the debate on school reform for the past several decades.

The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way

How do other countries create "smarter" kids? In a handful of nations, virtually all children are learning to make complex arguments and solve problems they've never seen before. They are learning to think, in other words, and to thrive in the modern economy.What is it like to be a child in the world's new education superpowers? In a global quest to find answers for our own children, author and Time magazine journalist Amanda Ripley follows three Americans embed­ded in these countries for one year.

Change Leader: Learning to Do What Matters Most

We live in a challenging, complex, inter-connected, and unpredictable world beset by a range of seemingly insoluble problems. But, says Michael Fullan—an internationally acclaimed authority on organizational change—we have an increasing understanding of how to tackle complex change. This involves developing a new kind of leader: one who recognizes what is needed to bring about deep and lasting changes in living systems at all levels.

What would it take?That was the question that Geoffrey Canada found himself asking. What would it take to change the lives of poor children, not one by one, through heroic interventions and occasional miracles, but in big numbers, and in a way that could be replicated nationwide? The question led him to create the Harlem Children's Zone, a 97-block laboratory in central Harlem where he is testing new and sometimes controversial ideas about poverty in America.

Stop the School Bus: Getting Education Reform Back on Track

From one of the largest organizations of public school principals, this book exposes many misguided school-reform initiatives that are negatively impacting students and educators across the country, and recommends ways to make them more effective. Veteran educator Gerald Tirozzi addresses all the hottest school reform trends including: charter schools, teacher merit pay, Race to the Top, Common Core State Standards, and more.

How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character

The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: Success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But in How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues for a very different understanding of what makes a successful child. Drawing on groundbreaking research in neuroscience, economics, and psychology, Tough shows that the qualities that matter most have less to do with IQ and more to do with character: skills like grit, curiosity, conscientiousness, and optimism.

Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (and How to Teach It to Everyone)

We’ve all had great teachers who opened new worlds, maybe even changed our lives. What made them so great? Everyone agrees that a great teacher can have an enormous impact. Yet we still don't know what, precisely, makes a teacher great. Is it a matter of natural-born charisma? Or does exceptional teaching require something more? Building a Better Teacher introduces a new generation of educators exploring the intricate science underlying their art.

Publisher's Summary

For the past 18 years, Michelle Rhee has dedicated herself to providing children with the skills and knowledge they need to compete in a changing world. As a teacher in inner-city Baltimore, chancellor of the Washington, DC, schools, and founder of the advocacy organization Students First, she has been guided by one principle: to prioritize the interests of children. Through her own failures and successes in the classroom, she gained a tremendous respect for the hard work that teachers do. She also learned the lesson that would drive her: Teachers are the most powerful influence on student achievement in our schools. But our educational system is broken. American children are being eclipsed by their peers in other countries like Finland, South Korea, and Singapore, and their rank will continue to plummet unless the problem is addressed immediately.

Part memoir, part manifesto, Radical is this fearless advocate's incisive, intensely personal call-to-arms. Rhee combines the story of her own extraordinary experience with dozens of compelling examples from schools she's worked in and studied-from students from unspeakable home lives who have thrived in the classroom to teachers whose radical methods have produced unprecedented leaps in achievement.

Radical chronicles Rhee's awakening to the potential of every child, her rage at the special interests blocking badly-needed change, and her recognition that it will take a grassroots movement to create outstanding public schools. As she outlines concrete steps that will put us on a dramatically different course, she offers inspiration and a sense of possibility for a brighter future for our children.

If you have seen the documentary Waiting for Superman and liked it, this is a great followup, featuring one of the people from the movie, Michelle Rhee, who was in charge of the DC Public School system.The book is a bit more of a biography as her life relates to public education. There is the life of her Korean parents, her upbringing, her college years, working in the Baltimore schools, and then the meat of the book, her role as Chancellor of DCPS. What you get is her point of view, and not an attempt at an unbiased/biased analysis of education reform. You get her views and impression of then Mayor Adrian Fenty and union head Randi Weingarten. You also get her passion for wanting better for inner city kids. The passion and desire come through clearly with the narration.I am a resident of DC and have lived in the District since the Mayor Williams years. I was very aware of the many challenges Rhee faced. Parts about the sheer amount of waste she found made me very angry, because I know there are parts of DC government that are still that way. I am also very aware that this is just her point of view and she leaves out voices that are not hers, which is understandable. She tries to be inclusive, like with an example of why people wanted to keep a school open for reasons that had more to do with community spirit and nothing to do with education.I finished the book feeling a sense of gratitude to Mayor Fenty and the changes that he made. I also left with a feeling that too many inner city and poor kids are getting screwed for no good reason and it is up to parents and regular citizens to change things.

After watching Michelle Rhee from the side lines, I thought I would read her book to gain more insight into her thought process and tenure as Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools. I must say, I thought she was spot on in her assessments of putting Students First. My wife and I are in the process of looking where to send our child for Kindergarten. Our criteria were pretty simple we were looking at the quality of the teachers, teacher to student ratio, curriculum, differentiated services, and school facilities (classroom quality etc). We looked at the local public school and a few private schools. Although our local public school did offer some services we were still concerned about their differentiated lesson plans. I believe most parents are concerned about the quality of their children education and if it’s subpar what actions do they have to improve it. If you live in a low income/poor community, your options are probably very limited. This book basically states this should not be the case.

Michelle Rhee is absolutely correct when she says that we have to be an advocate for ensuring we have great teachers, access to great schools, and effective use of public dollars when educating our kids regardless of community. Ensuring that we hold ineffective educators accountable and not just move them to another school seems very rational to me. Educating our children is a bipartisan issue and holding our politicians accountable to ensure every community has access to our standing schools and educators should be the standard not the exception.

Several people will be turned off from this book because Michelle Rhee is on the cover, to me that would be a tragedy. After reading this book I went to her website and registered.

Fast moving recap of Michelle Rhee's rapid ascent, progress and exit from the Washington D.C. school system. The story underscores the need for leadership and support from your boss, as well as the power of numbers (voters, that is) that the unions have. Great narration too.

I would have preferred if she shared her views on what would make schools better or worse. For the most part the criticism for schools is that they are "bad" and should be "good". That the levels of proficiency in math and science are "low" and they should be "high" and the best solution is the get "better" teachers. I wanted her to say what kinds of traits and behaviors make a better teacher or what makes a better atmosphere for learning. She did share her views on the voucher system (she is for it in cases that it allows kids to get better education results) and for strong teacher evaluation including kids ranking the teachers. However, more of this book is on her personal story of growing up, getting jobs, rubbing shoulders with important people and occasionally complaining about the teachers union. for Michelle Rhee's views on the teachers unions watch the big documentaries on education reform today such as The Cartel and Waiting for Superman (starring Michelle Rhee) also on the topic of education reform I recommend The War on Kids

Any additional comments?

I still hope that Rhee works to make schools better, the reforms she suggests are too simple to fill a book but are difficult to fill a life's work. she is indeed a hero- When she has something more to say- I hope to listen

Everything I know about Michelle Rhee, I learned through the media in the Washington, DC media. After the book Radical, I have a new respect for Michelle Rhee and her passion to improve public education.

Would you consider the audio edition of Radical to be better than the print version?

I excellent review of the current state of education in the USA by someone who was on the front lines. Rhee clearly lays out the issues and offers common sense solutions to the problems. A must read for every parent, grandparent, tax payer, and anyone who is interested in the survival of the USA.

Ms. Rhee has told an excellent story and has given us all something to seriously think about in education reform.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Book made me very sad for all of the missed opportunities for our educational system. The author has exposed a lot of very one-sided arguments and people not focusing on the students and student achievement.

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